Echoes of a Tortured Mind
by Avenue47
Summary: Only terror holds Sydney captive - VeryDark!Vaughn, and how Syd deals. Alludes to a scene cut from Blood Ties (3.19).


_I am so in love with you……_

Echo, echo, echo……

_How did it come to this?_

Echo, echo, echo……

_This is so fcking ridiculous that I can't even say anything……_

Echo, echo, echo……

These are the thoughts that echo in a tortured mind. She thought she had endured the worst tortures devised by the twisted imagination of men, but she was wrong.

She sat on her couch terrified. The bare fact that she felt terrified only served to increase her terror more.

Just a few days ago, a few short, yet eventful days, he whispered the words into her long-suffering ear. An ear already filled with promises that seemed to crumble in the light of day. But the context of this unspoken promise ignited a bright star of hope in her heart. It burned there until the day terror crushed it, consumed it like an ever-hungry black hole.

That's how she thought of him now: an ever-hungry black hole of revenge.

_He clutched her hand like it was his last tether to sanity. Understandable, given what they put him through. Unlike her, he wasn't equipped to withstand such…evil. It broke her heart to see him brought low like this. One of the things she'd always loved about him was his eternal optimism. Part of that optimism was crushed by the semblance of her death. No doubt, more was crushed by the betrayal of his semblance of a wife. She prayed with all her heart that he had some left. Just a little. It would be enough to sustain him. Sustain them._

He finished telling her that she must stay away from her sister, the Passenger. However, as they stared into each other's eyes, an unspoken understanding was reached that she wouldn't, couldn't do any such thing. He was too weak to protest, and knew anyway the hopelessness of such a gesture. She was a force of nature when determined to accomplish something, and this time her focus was on freeing Nadia from Sloane.

He slowly lifted his other hand, and beckoned her closer to him. She bent down and lowered her face to his. His ragged whisper echoed like a storm in her ear.

"I am so in love with you."

Startled by the sudden, unabashed declaration, she jerked her head up a little to look into his eyes. Between them, the saying "the eyes are the window to the soul" bore nothing but truth. Since the earliest days of their acquaintance, they could read each other's eyes like a book of their emotions; something they both found somewhat eerie until they started to realize how they felt for one another.

His eyes held only truth. Unadorned truth that had been suppressed by the atrocities visited upon him. And now that his true emotions were free, so was her heart. There was still so much heartbreak between them to heal, but she felt like she was presented with a beautiful beginning.

Beautiful except for that curious shine overlaying his honest eyes. Beautiful except for that horrible thing Dixon said they did to him. Beautiful except now she had to be so careful with him now. Nobody knew the extent of the conditioning, and what he might be programmed to do.

She couldn't return the sentiment, not now. He needed to heal, physically, mentally, and she needed to recover from all the pain he inadvertently put her through. There would be time later. Later they would share everything, once again.

But it hadn't happened like that. Not yet, anyway. Now she didn't see a time when it would, and that scared her as well. She had truly thought the end was in sight, that this time, it would work out and they could be together.

Bitterness crept across her mind as she thought about her naïveté. She was foolish to think that it could be so simple: lose the btch, and her true love would return to her. In fact, that was what happened, in a way, but she wasn't sure she wanted him back now. Not like this.

Why didn't she do something? It wasn't like she didn't notice. It was so fcking obvious that a child would notice. Why didn't anyone do anything?

_The analysts flinched as once again he barged into their offices looking for intel._

"We need to find her!" he would yell. And of course he would say that it was necessary for their objective to find the Passenger. It was imperative because she had been in this office and knew many of its secrets. It was of utmost importance because every agent based in Los Angeles could be endangered by her. He would repeat all this, and every third time he would come up with a new reason to pursue his wife.

But he never spoke of the real reason.

Brown eyes tracked his frantic movements, ears listened to a different type of storm.

"How did it come to this?" she asked mostly to herself, though Weiss and her father stood nearby.

"It's nothing," Weiss responded, dismissively. "He just needs to blow some steam off. He'll be okay."

Her father just stood there, silent and unreadable as ever. She wondered what insight he had into this, for the situation surely reminded him of her mother's betrayal. However, she doubted he would deign to inform her.

The analysts would complain, but Dixon soothed them and sent them back to their desks. After six hours of regular tirades, he sent them home early for the day.

Having no one left to harangue, he would sit at one of their computers and do the work himself.

Everyone left him alone. They were either under orders, or knew what happened to him. As long as he was here under their watchful eyes, and still working toward the objectives, they didn't feel they needed to worry about him. Nobody would disturb him and possibly create an unknown.

They were willing to let him stay there all night, and assign a few agents to watch him. She and Weiss volunteered to stay as well. However, sometime after midnight, he decided to go home. He brushed off Weiss' offer to go with him, and she wasn't about to ask. After he left, Weiss drafted one of the junior agents to follow him home, and watch the house all night.

The next morning, the agent would report that nothing happened, except the sounds of a commotion that would bring him to peek into one of the windows.

What he saw there was an enraged man tearing down his house of lies.

Everybody felt terrified, she realized. Terrified of him. While at this point, his closeness with the enemy was one of their greatest assets, it was also one of their greatest weaknesses. And at the moment, they didn't have the time to explore how his mind may have been manipulated. They weren't sure he'd let them find out. Not until his wife was captured. Or dead.

She was quickly coming to the conclusion that it would be safer for everyone if they just locked him up and forced him to submit to the psychological tests. But again, it was a terrifying unknown. While "safely" under lock and key, the conditioning could kick in. It could obliterate his emotional drive and compel him to act to the utmost of his abilities to extract himself. And to deliver himself willingly to those who had hurt him. It was a possibility no one wanted to think about, especially her.

So he remained with them, a loose cannon. At least he was _their_ loose cannon, and not the opposition's.

After the last mission, she questioned whether that kept them safer. Kept _her_ safer.

_She told him that he didn't want to do this, that he didn't want to be like this. She told him that she would help him. Then she left him to think about what she said._

The next day, he didn't come in. They hadn't sent someone to look after him the night before. After the mission, they thought he was okay. After she left before he did, they thought he had_ to be okay._

She felt guilty for leaving him, and took it upon herself to go find him. The search proved easy, she found him at his house.

She knocked on the door. After five minutes of no answer, she tried the knob. It was unlocked. She let herself in, and looked around the house in horror.

Intellectually, she knew that he'd trashed the house, but to actually see it was very different. This wasn't _the man she knew._

_She walked through the house, surveying the damage. Shattered dishes lay on the kitchen tile. The living room television had a hole in the screen. Replications of fine art on the walls had huge tears through the canvas. Picture frames littered the floor, face down and lying on broken glass._

She gingerly stepped over the wreckage of his life, and gently called his name.

She entered the hall leading to the bedrooms and bathrooms, and saw him exiting.  
He strode toward her, face hard and angry, eyes bloodshot. He looked rumpled and worn, still wearing his suit from last night.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"When you didn't come in, I began to worry about you. Are you okay?"

"No." He came to a stop six feet from her. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her.

"What can I do to help?" That statement made his face soften a little toward her.

"Help me find her."

"We're going to find her, we're working on it." She tried to keep her voice low and soothing.

"No, not with the CIA. Just us. I have some," he paused, and his eyes slid down quickly and then back to her. "Resources." She didn't notice his hesitation. She was too surprised by his meaning.

"Are you talking about going rogue?" He simply stared at her, not responding.

"I can't believe this. This is so fcking ridiculous that I can't even say anything."

She turned on her heel. She had no intention of leaving, not yet, but she couldn't look at him for a few moments.

He followed swiftly behind her, and grabbed her shoulder. He brutally spun her around, and the next thing she knew, she was mere inches from his face, staring into his bloodshot green eyes. They shone with so much anger and rage that she started to tremble.

"What's fcking ridiculous is that nobody is doing anything. What's fcking ridiculous is that we're letting an enemy of the state, full of knowledge about our operations, get away. WHAT'S FCKING RIDICULOUS IS WHAT SHE DID TO ME!" For a very slight moment, he looked like he was on the verge of breaking down. But his face hardened again, and he shoved her away. She had to steady herself on a wall to keep from falling.

"Leave." He turned his back to her and started to return to the hallway.

She felt so saturated with terror that she had no choice. She turned around, and as quickly as she could without running, left.  
  
She remembered how his eyes bored into her. Not to read the depths of her soul, but to force her to do his will.

She had never seen him like that, never. She never guessed that such black rage could exist in him. She'd touched his heart, it was clean and pure, not given to darkness.

But he embraced the darkness, and it scared her. She never knew if the man she once loved would return. She thought it might be a mercy if he was killed on his hunt.

_But what if he succeeds? What if he kills her?_ Her tortured thoughts sought hope.

It depended on how he killed her. A peculiar thing to think, perhaps, but justified considering the methods of death people like them were familiar with. She hoped that if he did find his wife, and killed her cleanly as a first choice, the sanity would return to him, and he to her.

But if he didn't, if it was just a grislier repetition of what happened with Dr. Lee……he would forever be scarred. And so would she. She wasn't sure she could live with him, knowing he was capable of that. She thought that he probably wouldn't be able to live with himself.

Too many horrendous possibilities.

_I wouldn't have given up on you!_

Echo, echo, echo……

_I'm not gonna lose you twice…_

Echo, echo, echo……

_We always find each other……_

Echo, echo, echo……

She resolved a long time ago not to let fear rule her. Only because he was buried so deeply in her heart, she forgot that promise to herself.

But in forgetting, she could be forgetting _him_.

She swallowed the lump that had sat in her throat since she left his house, and arose from her couch. She headed towards her bedroom, switching off all the lights as she went.

She entered her bedroom in darkness. Her shades were pulled, covering the windows. The room was nearly pitch black. She felt under her bed in a habit she trained herself to shortly after moving here. She also resolved that she would never be taken unaware again.

She found quickly what she wanted: two guns, three extra clips, and a small key. The key opened a four by four room in a local self-storage facility.

She had her own resources, and she would use them to bring him back to her.

The only thing that terrified her now was that she might be too late.


End file.
